CHAPTER I THE OBJECTIVIST SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGICAL CRITICISM (THE ORTHODOX MARXISTS PLEKHANOV AND Lvov) THE popularity of the subjectivist school with its populistic propaganda and with its hope of a special, non-capitalistic, social-economic evolution of Russia was diminished by the introduction of the Marxian philosophy of social evolution. Russian Marxism both possessed a sociological theory and made a practical appeal. The latter was directed to the rapidly increasing city proletariat, whereas the former was seized upon by the intellectual classes and by them exploited for an attack upon the subjectivist sociology which in the eighties had reached the zenith of its popularity. Hegel, Feuerbach and the English and French materialists had prepared the Russian mind for the philosophy of Marx. The readiness to embrace the Marxian creed is the more easily understood when we remember that the desire of the Russian intellectuals was to cast off the yoke of autocracy and to emancipate the individual. Marx's social philosophy showed that changes in the forms of production are followed by an inevitable change of social and political institutions.1 The Marxian or Objectivist Sociologists were divided into two factions. The orthodox, who were championed by the "father" of Russian Marxism, Plekhanov, and his pupils and friends and the 2 1 1 Cf. Plekhanov, History of Russian Social Thought, Petrograd, 1914, vol. i, p. 129. 2 Of these we may mention Lenin, Ulianov, Patressov, and Maslov. They voiced their opinions principally in the socialist monthly, "The Contemporary World," and in other publications. 205] 205 heterodox Neo-Marxists and Revisionists, of whom Struve and Tugan Baronofsky are the principal exponents. I. Plekhanov's Marxist Sociology Plekhanov1 is not only the first but also the foremost of the Orthodox Marxist School in Russia. His principal sociological work is On the question of the development of the Monistic Conception of History; it is inscribed to Mikhalovsky and Kareyev as the surviving champions of the subjectivist school and its avowed purpose is to controvert their views by developing the Marxian monistic conception of history and social evolution. A brief analysis of Plekhanov's theory of social evolution follows: 1. Plekhanov's critique of the non-Marxian subjective sociologists and Russian populists. 2. Plekhanov's philosophical and methodological presuppositions. 3. Plekhanov's theory of history or of social evolution. I. PLEKHANOV'S CRITIQUE OF THE NON-MARXIAN SUBJEC TIVE SOCIOLOGISTS AND RUSSIAN POPULISTS Plekhanov who, to begin with, was an ardent Russian populist, became in the early eighties after his conversion to Marxism, just as ardent and militant an advocate of this new political and social creed. His attacks were directed against the leaders of the Russian populist movement and he ridi 1 Georgy Valentinovitch Plekhanov (1857- ) is one of Russia's famous revolutionists; he founded the Marxian wing of Russian Social Democracy. In 1880 he was forced to leave his native land, nor has he been allowed to return thither. Being considered legally an undesirable citizen, he was compelled to write under various pseudonyms as N. Beltov, Volgin, Valentinov, etc. He enjoys an international reputation as Russia's most scholarly Marxist. His writings cover the various phases of the Russian socialist and revolutionary movement and are written for propaganda or for polemical purposes. culed as utopian their hope for a special non-capitalistic social evolution of the Russian people.1 Plekhanov classed the Russian populist leaders among the French and English utopian socialists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The populist movement received its intellectual bearings from subjectivist sociology, especially that of Lavrov and Mikhalovsky, and, therefore, Plekhanov pours out his wrath fiercely against this school in a manner which, to a foreign observer, seems hardly warranted but which, nevertheless, proves how intensely nationalistic these Russian sociologists were. Thus the "objectivism" of the Marxist school proves to be highly colored by passionate subjectivism which actually discredits its claim as a truly scientific theory. Plekhanov's attack upon the subjectivist school is directed first upon its "subjective" method which 3 1 This hope even Marx had cherished at the time of the Russian transition period which began with the emancipation of the serfs. He expressed his opinion in this regard in a letter to the editor of the "Otechestvenyya Zapiski". This letter was later used by Mikhalovsky and other populists as an argument against the Russian Marxists. Plekhanov explains away Marx's wording in that letter which he claims was written not as an argument but as a letter of consolation, intended for the purpose of quieting the troubled young Mikhalovsky, who worried over the inevitable doom of the Russian commune. "It was necessary," says Plekhanov, "to show the young Russian author that dialectical materialism does not condemn any nation to anything, that it does not show a general and 'inevitable' way for all people and at any given time; but that the development of any given society always depends upon the coördination of the inner social forces, and therefore it is necessary for every serious man to study the existing coördination, for only such study can show what is determined or indetermined for a given society." On the Question of the Development of the Monistic Conception of History, 4th ed., p. 218. 2 Vide supra, pp. 39-40. This intense polemical spirit shows itself in all of Plekhanov's sociological writings and especially in his book, A Critique of Our Critics, Petrograd, 1906. |